Just One of Those Things
by adieusweetamaryllis
Summary: "When I got home I was convinced that I was never going to go back, that I'd go stock shelves at the library or something for my community service. But then, the next day came around and it was time for my shift, and I thought if I didn't go back... I might never get to see you again. You were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, Britt. You still are." Brittana, M.


A/N: Just an idea I've had kicking around in my head for the past few months. Figured I'd try to get it out.

Leave a review if you'd like to read more!

/

It all started when she flunked math her freshman year.

She had just begun high school, and everything was huge and confusing. Classes were no longer shared with the same classmates that she had seen her entire life. The desks were large and had curse words carved into them with black ink. Chalkboards were replaced by whiteboards, people didn't move from class to class in organized, single-file lines, and no one got an A or passed a test just for trying.

It took barely a week for things to fall apart. Brittany hadn't been a great student up until then, but she had won her way through the years with a sweet smile and a good attitude. Now, she could smile until her cheeks were sore, but nothing would get her the grades that she couldn't seem to earn on her own.

Math was the worst of them all. The stuff they were learning had nothing to do with the simple addition and subtraction of the year before— there were letters, and weird symbols, and none of it made any sense to her. Her teacher didn't do much besides write on the overhead projector, and the other kids in class did nothing but echo back answers to his questions. The textbook was just a jumble of formulas and word problems, nothing that made any sense to her.

Brittany was left in the dust from the first time she sat in a high school desk.

After she failed math and barely pulled through biology the first quarter, her mother decided she needed "discipline." Brittany wasn't sure what she meant by that, because she had been taking dance lessons since the age of three and she was pretty sure that that taught her more than enough about self-control, but she wasn't going to argue with her mother when she was the one who had just failed. She also didn't argue with her when she said that Brittany wasn't allowed to get a job because it would make her young daughter money-obsessed. Instead, she was given two options: volunteer at the library, or volunteer at the animal shelter.

Brittany didn't like books.

Her first day at the Humane Society, she met a boy named Kurt Hummel. She had apparently been in school with Kurt her entire life without realizing it— they were on different tracks, and barely shared any classes together.

Kurt wasn't boorish or mean like any of the other kids at school. In fact, Brittany liked Kurt; he was withdrawn, cynical, and— most of the time— just downright funny. Working with Kurt was fun because he always had something to say about everyone, whether it be their loud coworker Rachel or Will Schuester, the boss who had an affinity for sweater-vests and hair-gel. When her shifts were shared with Kurt, she often found her sides hurting from laughter by the time she walked home.

That was more than three years ago, now.

The so-called discipline never really helped her grades, but with tutoring she at least began to pass her classes with C's. After the first few months, her mother gave her permission to quit after she saw that her plan wasn't working, but Brittany didn't want to. She liked Kurt and Rachel, and she liked the way Mr. Schuester always let her help out with the animals.

So, she stayed.

/

"Did you hear? Rachel's got a new recruit for us."

"Oh, really?" Brittany asked, eyebrows raised. She was surprised. She thought Rachel would have mentioned it at some point, because the girl usually shared just about every small detail of her life with her two coworkers.

One time, when Brittany asked why she talked about herself so much, Rachel said it was because she was practicing for when she had to write an autobiography one day. Kurt rolled his eyes, but Brittany thought it made sense. Rachel was kind of nice and funny sometimes, even if she looked at Brittany like she'd grown a third head when she laughed at some of the things that would come out of her mouth.

"Yeah, some girl that she goes to school with. Rachel warned me that she can be a bit… how did she put it?" Kurt pursed his lips, looking upwards as if expecting to find the word he was looking for written on the ceiling. "Abrasive."

Brittany found herself hoping that the "friend" Rachel was bringing didn't turn out to be anything like Rachel herself. One Rachel Berry was bearable, but two…

"That sounds… interesting," Brittany said, trying to remain as polite as she could despite her reservations. She shouldn't judge the girl before she even met her. Maybe having another someone like Rachel around would help calm the girl a bit.

"I didn't think it was possible for Rachel to have school friends that would voluntarily spend time with her outside of school. I mean, I like Rachel and all, but a few hours on the weekend is _plenty_ enough for me."

"Kurt, that's mean," Brittany chided. "Rachel's nice, she's just…"

Kurt nodded firmly. "Rachel."

As soon as the words left his mouth, two car doors slammed shut outside the window. Brittany glanced at the clock; it was only seven-thirty. The shelter wouldn't open for another hour and a half, and the only other person scheduled to work that morning was Rachel.

"Speak of the devil." Kurt stood, gathering a few folders in his hands, before coming out from behind the desk. "I've got to make some phone calls. Will you deal with Rachel and the new girl for me?"

"Of course," Brittany said.

She was always the friendlier of the two. She found it kind of confusing, because Kurt worked the front desk (which meant that he spent most of his time talking to people), while Brittany worked in the back with the animals. But she liked the animals more than the humans, anyway, and the dogs always barked way too much whenever Kurt tried to go near them.

"You're the best, B," he called over his shoulder as he walked into the back room.

Brittany looked around the room, trying to soak up the peace before Rachel and her new coworker came in. She loved being here this early in the morning, when the sun was shining through the windows and there was no one there but her friends and the animals. It's not that she minded the people — she loved them for giving the animals home, after all. There was just something about the calmness that felt almost magical.

At seven-thirty in the morning, anything could happen.

She walked through the lobby, stooping down to the cages that sat near the entrance. Throwing open the latches, she reached in and poured some water into the bowls there. When the shelter opened its doors for the day, she would put two or three kittens inside in hopes that they would be adopted by someone who saw them while waiting for a tour and couldn't resist their cute faces.

_'Lead with you best foot forward_,' her boss Holly would always say. Brittany never understood why they would have the kittens out front when they were the ones that would pretty much always get adopted. The older animals were the ones that really needed showcasing. She wasn't about to argue with her boss, though.

Brittany could hear Rachel and the new girl before she saw them, their voices echoing through the hallway as they entered the building.

"Just this way!" she heard Rachel exclaim loudly. "I'm so excited that you're coming with me!"

"I really don't understand why you're dragging me here," a girl's voice deadpanned. It was lower than Rachel's, and smoother too. Brittany found her ears pricking up at the sound of it, trying hard to hear more.

"Santana! Don't be so dramatic. I'm not 'dragging'you. I am _helping_ you!" Rachel insisted.

"Helping me? You call this _help_?" the voice asked incredulously. "I asked you to sign off on my community service hours—"

"And I agreed!"

"I didn't think you were going to actually make me _do_ the community service, Berry. That's not how it's supposed to work."

The door to the shelter swung open. Brittany watched as Rachel walked in, followed by…

Followed by the most beautiful girl Brittany had ever seen.

She was about Rachel's height, if not slightly smaller, with long, dark hair like her friend's.

That was where the similarities ended.

Whereas Rachel had the tendency to dress like a Catholic schoolgirl (even when _not_ in her school uniform), the girl behind her was wearing dark, tight jeans, with a black tank-top. She had deeply tanned skin, and wore several bracelets around one of her wrists. Her eyes were dark, and her eyebrows were scrunched together angrily.

"It's not as if I was going to forge the documents for you, Santana."

"Whatever," the girl— Santana, said, rolling her eyes. Brittany swallowed thickly at the sound of the girl's voice in the same room as her. It was even richer than it had been echoing off the walls in the hallway, and Brittany was suddenly struck by how fitting it was that that voice belonged to someone as attractive as the girl in front of her.

Brittany must've been distracted by their appearance, because her hand slipped against the cage and the door slammed shut loudly, drawing both girls' attention sharply to her.

"Oh, Brittany!" Rachel exclaimed, walking quickly towards her, the girl trailing behind.

"Rachel!" she answered, wincing when her voice came out as a squeak.

"This is my friend, Santana," Rachel said, gesturing towards the girl, who now had her arms crossed and was glaring at Rachel.

She raised her hand in a half-hearted wave. "Hey," Brittany offered lamely. The girl's gaze drifted away from Rachel and onto Brittany. Brittany felt her breath catch as the girl looked at her for a few long seconds.

"Hey," she finally said. There was no hint of emotion in her voice, and her eyes immediately landed back on Rachel after speaking.

"Santana will be helping out here for the next couple of weeks. She needs some community service hours to make her college applications more… appealing, shall we say?"

Rachel looked towards Santana with a smile, but Santana merely raised her eyebrows in response.

"Of course, she'll never be able to get as many hours as you and I have racked up over the years, but every little bit counts!" Rachel grinned encouragingly at her friend.

"Cool," Brittany said, happy when her voice sounded stronger this time. She tried to catch Santana's eyes again, but the girl wouldn't meet her gaze.

"Unfortunately, I have quite the busy day ahead of me— I'm needed at the adoption fair in the park. So, if you wouldn't mind, Brittany, could you give Santana the grand tour? Help her get acclimated?" Rachel asked, and Brittany felt a sudden rush of fear and excitement. That would mean that she would get to be alone with new girl for at least an hour.

She just hoped that Santana would open up a little… or at the very least look at her.

"Absolutely," Brittany nodded eagerly, cursing herself for yet another one-word response.

"Excellent. I'm going to just go drop a few papers off to Kurt and leave you two to it!" Rachel said excitedly before walking past Brittany and into the back room. She could hear Rachel talking loudly to Kurt in the other room. She cleared her throat awkwardly, trying to think of something to say before the silence got awkward.

She was surprised when Santana spoke first.

"Sorry about that," she said, most of the anger seemingly gone from her voice and face. "I don't have to stick around if it's any trouble."

"What? No! Don't be silly, we can always use help," Brittany was quick to assure her.

It was true. The shelter was alarmingly low on volunteer staff after the summer had ended. Brittany tried to spend as much time as possible there after school but she was in her senior year, and she found herself spending less and less time caring for the animals and more and more time doing homework and thinking about college applications. She still had no idea what she wanted to do, but her parents would throw a fit if she didn't at least _look_ into a few schools for them to visit.

Santana shrugged. "If you're sure," she said, sounding uncertain.

Brittany wasn't unnerved by the girl's apparent lack of enthusiasm; in fact, it just made her decide to try even harder to get the girl to come out of her shell. She knew first impressions were important, and was determined not to screw this one up.

Brittany couldn't help it. Underneath her nerves, she was a people person, and that wasn't about to change just because she was talking to the prettiest girl she had ever met.

"I'm definitely sure. Here, I'll show you around! Follow me."

Brittany led them around the front desk and down a short hallway, until they were looking into a room with a few pet beds and a scratching posts scattered around. The room had large windows that you could see through from the hallway, and bright colors with cute cartoon dogs and cats decorated the walls.

"This is the 'waiting room' for the animals," she explained when they stopped to look through the door. "It's where we put them when they've been adopted, and they're just waiting for their new owners to come and pick them up."

Santana nodded but didn't say anything, so Brittany spun around and pushed through a swinging door that lead to the back room.

There were five or six desks along the walls, though they had hardly ever had the staff to fill them the past few months. The spaces in between held filing cabinets, stuffed with records of past animal adoptions. Kurt was sitting at one of the desks, a phone tucked under his chin as he typed furiously.

"That's Kurt. He answers the phones and signs people in for their tours. He's usually up at the front desk," Brittany explained.

At the sound of his name, Kurt raised one hand to wave behind him, the other continuing to type as his gaze remained focused on the screen. He was talking in a dull tone to whoever was on the other end, and Brittany knew him well enough to know that she shouldn't bother him right then.

"That sounds… riveting," Santana commented under her breath. Brittany nodded, unsure of how to handle the girl's blatant sarcasm. Normally she was at least a little bit witty, but her heart was still racing from their proximity.

"C'mon," she said, nodding her head towards the door across the room. They exited silently and turned left, walking back towards the entrance. She pushed open the door closest to them, holding it open so Santana could see inside.

"This is our 'Meet n' Greet' room," she said, gesturing towards the two couches, several dog beds, and plastic toys lying around in the room. "It's where the animals get to meet their new owners, and sometimes their new brothers and sisters."

"Brothers and sisters?" Santana asked, frowning.

"Yeah, you know. The other pets the owners might have had before they decided to take in another," Brittany explained simply.

"Oh. Right." The girl's brows were furrowed, and Brittany flushed with embarrassment. Santana probably thought she was weird now. But Brittany couldn't help but treat the animals like humans; she spent most of her days with them. Some of the animals were her closest friends. She forgot sometimes that other people didn't feel the same way.

"Okay, um— this way," she said, cutting into the awkward silence as she led them through another door. "Through here is is where we keep the cats. We usually have over a hundred in the shelter at a time."

Santana's eyes widened as she looked at all the cages lining the walls. There were large crates with a sheet of thick plastic covering the front, so the cats couldn't scratch at people walking by. Tiny holes were poked along the top and bottom of each cover to allow for airflow.

Cats of all ages lived in the shelter. The friendlier cats were kept two to a cage, but some of the older, grumpier felines sat alone, tails whipping back and forth as they glared at everyone who passed them by. Each cage had a picture along with a short description of the cats inside. Signs with "Please Don't Touch!" written on them were plastered to the walls,

"Holy shit. Where do they all come from?" Santana asked, stepping forward to peer into one of the cages. The cat inside walked forward, pressing it's face against the plastic as if trying to nuzzle her through it.

"They're mostly strays. You'd be surprised how many homeless cats there are around here. We also take in cats from 'kill-shelters' across the country. We try to help as many as we can, but…" Brittany trailed off sadly.

She moved towards the cage Santana was standing in front of, quickly unlatching the lock and scooping up the cat inside. His name was Mr. Zach, and he was one of Brittany's favorites. He was sweet and cuddly and would never hurt a fly. She could never understand why he had been in the shelter for so long, but it was just the way things went. Some of the animals there were lifelong residents, unfortunately.

Brittany wished she could adopt him herself, but her parents would never allow it. They already had a cat, and he was a handful on his own. He probably wouldn't like to have any other pets living with them, anyway. He was kind of a grouch like that.

"You'll learn their names really fast, and which ones you can touch and pet and love," she said as Zach twisted in her arms. He was trying to get to Santana. Zach was an attention hog, and people usually ate it right up. Brittany didn't take it personally, though. She knew she and Zach were best friends, even if he got easily distracted.

"I have to touch them?" Santana asked, eyeing the black cat in Brittany's arms warily.

"Well, yeah. This _is_ an animal shelter…" Brittany explained, frowning. How did Santana expect to volunteer at an animal shelter without having to touch any animals? Then she remembered the overheard conversation with Rachel, and realized that Santana had never wanted to volunteer here in the first place. Her presence was all Rachel's doing, and Brittany made a mental note to thank her later.

"Right, but I thought… I don't know, I thought that I could just work at the desk or something," Santana said, sounding somewhat embarrassed.

"No, no, we have plenty of greeters. What we need is someone to help me out with taking care of the animals."

"So… I have to what, like feed them or something?"

"Well, yeah, that's part of it. We walk the dogs and help all the animals socialize. We groom them and make them look nice and pretty so when people come and visit them they'll want to take them home!"

She leaned forward, planting a kiss on the head of the cat in her arms. "Isn't that right, Mr. Zach?" Brittany asked in a baby voice. She glanced up at the girl, and for the first time since she had arrived saw a small smile tugging at the corners of Santana's mouth.

"_Right, Brittany!" _she continued in a higher pitch, grabbing one of Mr. Zach's paws and waving it.

Santana's small smile grew wider at Brittany's silly tone, and Brittany felt her heart drop into her stomach at the sight. The girl was even more beautiful when she smiled, and Brittany felt extremely proud that _she_ had been the one to cause such a gorgeous thing to occur.

"This is Zach," Brittany said, holding the cat out a little further so Santana could see him properly. "He's been here the longest. He's older, and people tend to go for the kittens before they come for the wise old guys like Zach here. Say hi, buddy!"

Zach blinked lazily at Santana and she stared back at him, looking equally uninterested.

"You can pet him if you'd like," Brittany offered.

"I, uh— okay, yeah," Santana stuttered, before reaching her hand out and placing it on Zach's back.

"He likes it behind his ears," Brittany whispered as if sharing a secret. Santana smiled nervously at her before moving her hand slowly up his back towards his head. Zach leaned into her touch, purring when she began to scratch the back of his head.

"Wow," Santana breathed.

"He likes you," Brittany said, smiling warmly.

"He does?"

"Yeah, hear how loud he's purring? Hell, I think he might even _love_ you."

Santana looked up at her, eyes wide. Brittany held her gaze for a few moments, unable to look away as they stared at each other over the top of the black cat's head. Santana broke first, smiling shyly as she dropped her eyes.

Brittany felt her cheeks redden, clearing her throat as she pulled Mr. Zach away and put him back in his cage.

"All right, now through here…"

—

She walked Santana through the rest of the building, doing her best to talk the entire time so that there wouldn't be any awkward pauses. Santana stayed near-silent for the rest of the tour, but she didn't look angry or scared anymore; Brittany even got a few more smiles out of her.

She was a little sad when they reached the front desk again, watching as Santana's eyes darted immediately towards the door.

"So, when do you start?" she asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.

"Uh— tomorrow, I guess. Rachel seems to think the sooner I start the more chance I'll have at getting into college, but…" she trailed off, finishing her thought with a shrug. "Tomorrow."

"Oh, I'm working tomorrow!" Brittany said, thrilled at the idea of seeing the girl again.

She was happy to see that what looked like a genuine smile snuck onto Santana's face.

"That's good news," she said, and Brittany's face brightened even more.

"It is?" she asked eagerly, before a blush spread across her cheeks. She had a habit of speaking without meaning to, and the words that came out of her mouth were— more often than not— embarrassing.

Santana didn't seem to notice her embarrassment. Or if she did, she at least had the courtesy to ignore it. "Yeah," she nodded. "I mean, at least I won't just be hanging around with Berry all day."

Someone in the parking lot laid on the horn, causing Brittany to jump and Santana to whirl around angrily.

"Oh— that's my ride," she admitted, wincing. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Brittany said. Santana offered a small smile in return (which was enough to light up her entire face, in Brittany's opinion).

"It was nice to meet you, Brittany."

With a wave, Santana pushed through the door.

A jeep was waiting outside, and she threw her hands up angrily at the person in the driver's seat before climbing in. Brittany watched the car until it rolled out of sight. Even once it was gone, she couldn't seem to tear herself away from the door— until she heard a snorting noise coming from behind her.

She turned to see Kurt laughing into his fist. She almost asked how long he had been standing there, but she could guess by the glint in his eyes that it had been long enough for him to know _exactly_ how she felt about their new recruit.

"Shut up," she groaned.

Kurt couldn't hold it in any longer, laughing loudly as Brittany flushed with embarrassment. She did her best to ignore him, avoiding his gaze as she walked swiftly past him to go find something to occupy herself with until the shelter opened.


End file.
